'Women to blame' for failure to succeed in the workplace

Women are to blame for their failure to break through the glass ceiling at work, a female behavioural scientist has claimed.

11:09PM BST 20 Aug 2008

Shannon Goodson believes women reluctant to shout about their achievements in the office because they didn't want to appear unladylike.

Ms Goodson compared 11,500 female professionals with 16,700 male workers in 34 countries for her book The Psychology Of Sales Call Reluctance.

She found women in Britain, America and China were the most likely to openly discuss their achievements, but those in New Zealand and Sweden were less willing to promote themselves.

On the other hand, most men were eager to boast about their successes, even lying from time to time in order to bolster their image in the workplace.

Ms Goodson also found that women who broke through the glass ceiling to attain positions of power were likely to sabotage the chances of their fellow female workers.

"Women did not create the glass ceiling, the invisible barrier blamed for limiting their ability to earn what they're worth, but they help maintain it," Ms Goodson said.

"Being able to draw attention to your contributions and competencies at work has become an important part of modern career management, and it is something most women are still unwilling or unable to do as consistently as their male counterparts," she said

The research found that women believed that self-promotion is "socially unacceptable", "unladylike" and "morally suspect".

"They believe hard work alone is sufficient to put them on salary and status par with their male counterparts," she said.

"Good work is important, but good work alone does not, as the myth says, speak for itself, you have to give it a voice."

Overall, women were not doing enough to advance their own careers, she said.